Luck in the Shadows

29 An Abrupt Change of Scenery

Caught in midpace, Seregil ran headlong into something in the darkness. Backing up hastily, he could just make out two tall forms that had somehow materialized in the cell. For a chilling instant, his mind skipped back to the lonely Mycenian inn and the dark presence he'd grappled with there; then he caught the familiar smell of parchment and candle smoke.

"Nysander?"

"Yes, dear boy, and Thero." Drawing Seregil to the back of the cell, he spoke close to his ear.

"Thero has come to take your place."

"How?"

"No time for explanations. Join hands with him."

Biting back a flood of questions, Seregil did as Nysander asked. Thero's hands were cold but steady in his as Nysander took them firmly by the shoulders and began a silent incantation.

The transformation happened with dizzying swiftness. For an instant the shadows of the cell seemed to brighten, swirl, engulf them all-and when Seregil's vision cleared, he found himself on the wrong side of the room facing a slim, all-too-familiar figure.

Raising a hand to his face, he felt a coarse mat of beard covering a gaunt cheek.

"Bilairy's Balls and Kidneys—"

"Quiet!" hissed Nysander.

"Take care with my body," Thero warned, touching his own new face.

"I'm more anxious to trade back than you, believe me!" Seregil shuddered, swaying a little in his new, taller frame. He could guess what was next and dreaded it.

Nysander slipped a firm hand beneath his arm and led him to the back wall of the cell. Reluctantly, Seregil took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and stepped forward into the aperture that yawned, blacker than darkness and staggered out again, blinking and gagging, into the sudden brightness of Nysander's casting room.

"Steady now, I've got you," Micum said, catching him as his knees gave way. "Alec, the brandy. And the basin, too, by the looks of him,"

Seregil crouched over the brass basin for a moment, fighting down the intense nausea brought on by the spell; translocation spells had by far the worst aftereffect. Settling back on his heels, he gratefully accepted a cup of brandy.

Alec stared at him, goggle-eyed. "Seregil, is that really you in there?"

Seregil examined the pale, bony fingers wrapped around the cup, then knocked back the fiery liquor in a single gulp. "Gruesome, isn't it?"

"Thero was no more pleased than you by the prospect," sighed Nysander. "He was, however, a good deal more gracious."

"Forgive me," Seregil retorted. "I'm just not myself tonight."

Alec was still staring. "You've got Thero's voice, but somehow—I don't know, it still sounds more like you. Is it different than when you changed into an otter?"

"Decidedly." Seregil looked down at his new body warily. "It's like wearing an ill-fitting suit of clothes you can't take off. He wears his linen rather tight, too. I didn't know you could do this, Nysander!"

"It is not a practice of which the Orлska particularly approves," replied the wizard with a meaningful wink. "As it was successful, however, I should like to undertake a brief experiment. Do you recall the spell for lighting a candle?"

"You want me to try it while I'm in this body?"

"If you would."

Nysander placed a candlestick on the casting table.

Getting to his feet, Seregil held his hand over the candle.

Micum gave Alec's sleeve a surreptitious tug, whispering, "You might want to stand back a bit, just in case."

"I heard that," Seregil muttered. Centering his concentration on the blackened wick, he spoke the command word.

The results were instantaneous. With a rending groan, the polished table split down the middle and fell apart in two neat halves. The candle, still unlit, clattered to the floor.

They all regarded the wreckage in silence for a moment, then Nysander bent to finger the splintered wood.

Seregil sighed. "Well, I hope that answered your question."

"It has answered several, the most significant being that the transformation of magical power was complete.

Thero should be fairly safe, providing we proceed with all possible haste. There is a great deal to discuss before Alec returns to Wheel Street."

"I have to go back tonight?" Alec asked, clearly crestfallen at the prospect. "But Seregil only just got—" Seregil gave him a playful cuff.

"Appearances, Alec, appearances! You're the master of the house in my absence, as well as a possible suspect by the sound of things. We can't have you dropping out of sight with no explanation."

"Quite right," Nysander agreed. "But we shall lay our plans before you go. Come down to the sitting room, all of you. I expect Seregil would like a decent supper. Thero ate almost nothing tonight."

"I can feel that!" Seregil patted his lean belly wryly. Following the others downstairs, he touched his face again. An unruly hair on his upper lip tickled a nostril and he smoothed it impatiently.

"Amazing," he muttered. "I've never cared much for all this hair you people have sprouting out of your faces anyway, but now that I've got it myself-it's absolutely revolting!"

Micum proudly stroked his heavy red mustache. "For your information, we consider it a sign of virility."

"Oh?" Seregil snorted. "And how many times have I sat waiting in the middle of nowhere while you scraped away at your chin with a knife and cold water?"

"It's my fashion," Micum said, giving Alec a wink. "Kari likes it this way—smooth cheeks with a bit of tickle thrown in."

"It itches," Seregil complained, scratching under his nose again. "Teach me to shave, will you?"

"You most certainly will not!" Nysander said sternly.

During supper the others outlined their recent activities for Seregil. He chuckled appreciatively over their adventures in Hind Street but grew serious at Nysander's report.

"Forging a Queen's Warrant? No wonder Barien was upset. Except for the Queen and Phoria, he's the only person with access to the necessary seals."

"Rightful access," Micum amended. "What do you suppose this ship, the White Hart, ended up with in

her hold?"

Seregil looked to Nysander. "I could probably find out. Three years is a long time, but records would be kept in the shipping master's offices at her port of call. It won't show us her real cargo, I'm certain, but it would be a start."

"It will probably prove unrelated to the business at hand, yet I should prefer to leave no avenue untried," mused Nysander. "And now let us lay our plans for tomorrow."

Dawn was only a few hours away when they'd finished, and Alec suddenly gave in to a cavernous yawn.

"Sorry," he said, yawning again.

Seregil grinned. "No wonder you're tired. You've been busy!"

Thero would be a lot better-looking if he'd smile more, Alec thought, surprised at the difference it made.

What must Seregil's face look like now, with Thero's mind behind it?

"I'm done in myself," Micum said. "If we're all in agreement on tomorrow's work, Alec and I had better go find our beds before the sun comes up."

"You're getting old," Seregil scoffed, following them upstairs. "Used to be we'd be up for two or three days before you'd begin to flag."

"By the Flame, you've got that right! Another few years and I'll be happy to spend my days in a sunny corner of Kari's garden spinning lies for the servants" children."

At the workroom door, Alec turned for a last look at Seregil in Thero's body. He couldn't imagine a more unlikely combination. Shaking his head, he said, "It's good to have you back—sort of."

"Sort of good or sort of back?" Seregil countered, managing a semblance of his familiar lopsided grin in spite of the beard.

"Sort of both," said Alec.

"And I sort of thank you, all of you, for your good work tonight on my behalf," Seregil said, clasping hands with them. "Things were beginning to look a bit grim in that cell. Between the four of us, we should be able to sort things out soon enough."

A crushing weariness settled over Seregil as he went back downstairs. Collapsing gratefully on Thero's clean, narrow bed, he hadn't the strength left to pull off his shoes.

It's the magic, he thought, drifting off to sleep. Damn stuff always wears me out.

Exhausted as he was, the night was not a peaceful one. Tossing restlessly, he fought his way through a

parade of uneasy dreams. At first they were only fragmented glimpses of the past few days-a distorted event, repetitious snippets of conversation, faces of no consequence looming again and again. Gradually, however, the images began to coalesce.

He was still in Thero's body, riding on horseback through the city. It was dark and he was lost. The street markers were gone, the lamps unlit on their hooks. Frustrated and a little frightened,he pushed on at a gallop.

His horse had no head; the reins passed over a smooth, glossy hump and disappeared somewhereunderneath the animal's chest.

I can't stop it anyway, he thought. Letting go of the reins, he clung to the saddlebow.

Flecked with sweat, the strange creature thundered for hours, carrying him down one unfamiliar street after another until an owl flew up beneath its feet. Startled, the horse reared and threw him,then disappeared into the surrounding darkness.

Looking up, he found himself at the gate of Red Tower Prison.

Enough! I'm getting my own body back right now! he thought angrily, floating up from the groundand soaring to the roof of the prison.

It felt wonderful to fly, and he circled the Tower a few times, savoring it. The ships in the harborwere all on fire, however, and this disturbed him greatly. Diving like a swallow, he darted in through a hole in the prison roof.

It was dark here, too. Stumbling through the blackness, he spied a glimmer of light ahead. It came through the grille of a cell door. The door was locked but the wood turned to red butterflies at his touch. Passing through their gentle resistance, he stepped into a fiery brightness and threw his arm up to shield his eyes.

His true body stood in the center of the room, naked except for the crawling mass of tiny,spider-shaped flames that encased it from the neck down.

They should be gone! he thought, repulsed by the sight.

His body raised a hand to its chest, saying with Thero's voice, "They're coming from here."

"I'll stop them."

Approaching cautiously, Seregil brushed at the flame creatures on the chest. They fell away at histouch, revealing a bright blue eye glaring hatefully from a bloody hole in the chest just over the breastbone. Recoiling, Seregil watched in mounting horror as the skin around the eye began to twitch and stretch. The flame creatures crumpled and fell away and he could see the writhing motions beneath the skin of his body's chest and belly, as if something hideous was clawing its way out from inside.

Tears of blood streamed down from the unnatural eye but his face—Thero's now—smiled calmly.Still smiling, Thero leapt at him, arms outstretched as if to embrace him. With a strangled cry, Seregil fell backward through the red butterflies—

He sat up with a gasp. Pulling free of the tangled sheets, he went to the hearth and poked up a fire bright enough to light the room. His clothes were soaked through with cold, sour sweat. Stripping them off, he looked down at the pale, angular body he inhabited. Little wonder he was dreaming of his own!

The details of the nightmare were already skittering away, but he recalled the image of the eye with a shudder.

Tossing a few more logs on the fire, he climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up to his nose.

As he drifted back to sleep it occurred to him that this was the first time in weeks that he'd dreamed at all.

Late-morning light was streaming in at the open window when he opened his eyes again. Lying quietly for a moment, he discovered that he'd forgotten most of the nightmare. His second sleep had been filled with dreams of a lascivious nature quite unlike his usual fare and he'd awakened to find Thero's body in an uncomfortable state of arousal. Cold water soon put a stop to that. He pulled on a clean robe and went up the tower stairs two at a time.

"Good morning!" Nysander smiled at him over a cup of morning tea, a familiar, reassuring sight. "Are you feeling more at—dear me, you appear to have slept badly."

"I did," Seregil admitted. "I had some nightmare about going after my body. It had that eye in the chest, where the scar is. It was all sort of familiar, in a way, like I'd dreamed it before."

"How unpleasant. Do you recall any more of it than that?"

"Not really. Something about flying, I think, and fire— I don't know. Later on there were other, different images. Is it possible for me to have Thero's dreams?"

"A mental link through his body? I should not think so. Why?"

Seregil rubbed his eyelids and yawned. "Oh, nothing. First night in a new body and all that. Just between you and me, though, a few days in the Street of Lights wouldn't do Thero any harm."

"He seems to be celibate by nature."

Seregil chuckled cryptically. "By practice, perhaps, but not by nature!"

They kept to Nysander's tower all day, avoiding anyone perceptive enough to detect a change in «Thero» — not an easy task in a house full of wizards.

Wethis appeared to notice nothing amiss, and Seregil noted with amusement the guarded dislike that lurked behind the young servant's deferential mask as he went about his daily duties in Thero's room.

At midday Nysander went out to attend to some business elsewhere in the House. Seregil was poking restlessly around the workroom when a sharp rap sounded at the tower door. It was House etiquette to open the door to all callers, so Seregil had no choice but to answer. Peering out, he found Ylinestra

waiting impatiently in the corridor.

Her green silk gown was gathered tightly beneath the breasts, setting off her ravishing loveliness in a fashion that Seregil could not help but note.

He did not know her well, and her behavior toward him had always been civil to the point of coolness. It was quickly apparent now, however, that this reserve did not extend to Nysander's assistant.

"Ah, Thero! Is Nysander in?" She flashed a radiant, violet— eyed smile.

"Not just now, my lady," Seregil replied, wondering how Thero comported himself around such beautiful women. He soon had an inkling.

"So formal today!" Ylinestra chided playfully, sweeping past him. The crowded confines of the entrance might have explained the generous brush of silk-clad breast and thigh against his side; something in the lilt of her voice warned otherwise. Following her back to the workroom, Seregil felt a pleasant tug of anticipation. Both of them, he suspected, were about to put on excellent performances.

"Out chasing around on behalf of his pretty Aurлnfaie friend, is he?" she sighed, turning back to him with a conspiratorial pout.

"Not at the moment." Seregil gave a credible rendering of Thero's customary disdain at any mention of himself. "He's gone to see Mosrin i Argavan. Something about the library."

"And left you here to solitary toil, eh? How lonely for you. And me, as it turns out." Ylinestra drifted closer, and Seregil was suddenly aware of the light, spicy scent she wore. With it came a sudden mental image of the perfume rising invisibly from the warm cleft between her breasts. That put him on his guard. It wasn't his usual sort of thought at all, and smacked of magical machination.

"I hardly see Nysander anymore," she sulked, just inches away now. "You tell him for me that if he doesn't mend his ways, I'll look elsewhere for inspiration. I daresay he neglects you as well when that Seregil fellow is around. It makes one wonder—"

Arching a perfect eyebrow, she let the thought hang unfinished between them, then surprised him with a brisk, almost maternal pat on the arm. "If you find yourself at loose ends, my offer still stands."

"Offer?"

"Oh, shame on you!" she twinkled, coy again. "Those Ylani levitation chants I promised you? You still haven't come to learn them and you seemed so eager when we spoke last. I've a few other bits of magic that I think you'll enjoy, too, things Nysander can't teach you. I'd show you one now, only I need my own things. You must come to my rooms. You wouldn't want me to lose patience with you, would you?"

"No, not at all," Seregil assured her. "I'll come as soon as I can. I promise."

"There's a good boy." Brushing his cheek chastely with her own, she swept out leaving a light drift of scent in her wake.

Illior's Fingers! Seregil thought, impressed. What she hoped to gain by seducing Thero was beyond comprehension, but the sooner Nysander knew what was going on, the better.

To his disappointment, Nysander was more amused than outraged.

"What are you so upset about?" he asked. "Only this morning you were advocating just such a course of action yourself."

"Well, yes, but not with his master's lover!" sputtered Seregil.

"It is not like you to be such a prig," countered Nysander. "I appreciate your concern, but it is quite unwarranted. The lovely Ylinestra and I claim no more hold on one another than we do on the wind.

"Though I flatter myself that she does take some genuine pleasure in my company, it is my magic that interests her most. She has shown me a few interesting aspects of her own art, too, but it must be apparent to you of all people where my real interest in her lies."

"A good lay?"

"Beyond description, dear boy! And as neither she nor I have asked more than the other is prepared to give, we are quite satisfied with the arrangement. At heart, Ylinestra is a vain creature whose sexual tastes run more commonly to the conquest of virginal young men."

"She's a man-eater, all right. She's always very cool with me though."

Nysander let out a dry chuckle "I would hardly describe you as virginal. I suspect she also prefers her lovers to be more singular in their tastes than your reputation suggests. It is Alec I would keep an eye on, if I were you. She would have him—what is that colorful phrase of Micum's."

"On a platter with boiled leeks"?" Seregil snorted. "Thanks for the warning."